Professor Michaela Driver

Chair in Management

Contact details

Personal details

I hold an appointment at the University of Leicester School of Management as a Chair in Management, and as Professor of Business Administration at a university in Colorado, Denver. I previously worked at East Tennessee State University and have industry experience as a senior consultant with Price Waterhouse and in supply chain management with Mercedes and General Motors.

My work has been published in journals including:

Organisation Studies

Human Relations

Academy of Management Learning and Education

Organisation

Management Learning

Journal of Organizational Change Management

Journal of Business Ethics

Journal of Management Inquiry

I serve on several editorial boards including:

Organisation

Organisation Studies

Management Learning

The Journal of Management Inquiry

Teaching

I provide specialist research support and advanced specialised topics courses in my areas of expertise, such as the psychoanalytic study of organisations.

Administrative responsibilities

I support grant and REF-related activities in my area of research specialisation.

Research

I am interested in examining the subjective experience of individuals in organisations today. Whether it is to participate in organisational change, engage in learning or leadership or simply consume food and drink, I'm interested in finding out how this is experienced and narrated and how it constructs subjectivity consciously and unconsciously in the workplace.

Recently, I examined the subjective experience of trusting others in organisations and of constructing identities as social entrepreneurs. Using a Lacanian perspective, among others, I'm interested in exploring how organisation is experienced, perhaps as a failed fantasy and what emancipatory spaces may be opened up in the process.

I research alternative and psychoanalytic approaches to a wide range of organisational topics such as:

Organisational identity and learning

Emotions

Spirituality

Corporate social responsibility

Identity work

Creativity

Embodied subjectivity and leadership

Supervision

I'm interested in working with PhD students in the areas of Lacanian psychoanalysis and storytelling and anything related to examine the subjective experience in organizations from food practices to questions of identity, learning, leadership and social entrepreneurship.

Driver, M. 2003. United We Stand or Else? Exploring Organizational Attempts to Control Emotional Expression by Employees on September 11, 2001. Journal of Organizational Change Management, 16(5): 534-546.

“Innovation and Adaptation: An Organizational Learning Approach to the Development of Core Competencies” by Michaela Driver with J.Cashman, in Implementation of Competency-Based Strategies: Theory and Practice, Advances in Applied Business Strategy Series, JAI Press, Stamford CT, Vol. 7, 1999, pp.51-66.

Driver, M. Stress at Work: When the Fantasy Fails of Who We Are In and Through Work. Presented at the Academy of Management Conference, San Antonio, TX, 2011.

Driver, M. Donuts and Diets: Food and Subjectivity in Organizations. Presented at the Academy of Management Conference in Philadelphia, PA, 2007

Driver, M. Neither Good nor Happy: Reflections on Goodness of and Happiness in Organizations as Imaginary Constructions of the Self. Presented at the Academy of Management Conference in Philadelphia, PA, 2007

Driver, M. New and Useless? Rethinking the Concept of Usefulness in Organizational Creativity Research. Presented at the European Group for Organization Studies Conference in Vienna, Austria, 2007

Driver, M. Lacanian Analysis and the Study of Identity Through Discourse in Organizations: Taking Responsibility for the Ethics of Subjectivity. Presented at the Critical Management Studies Conference in Manchester, UK, 2007

Driver, M. Resistance and Spirituality: The Discourse of Subjectivity and the Authentic Self. Presented at the Critical Management Studies Conference in Manchester, UK, 2007

Driver, M. Lacanian Analysis and the Study of Discourse in Organizations: Taking Responsibility for the Ethics of Subjectivity. Presented at the Annual Colloquium for Advancing Psychoanalytically Informed Organization Theory and Research, Columbia, Missouri, 2006.

Driver, M. From Transcendence To Resistance: Toward Critical Spirituality in Organizations. Presented at the Academy of Management Meeting 2004, New Orleans, LA

Driver, M. Finding Meaning At Work: The Integration Of Suffering As A Dimension Of The Spiritual Organization. Presented at the European Group of Organization Studies Conference, Copenhagen, Denmark, 2003

Driver, M. Toward a Brechtian Model of Role-Related Learning in Organizations. Presented at the Academy of Management Conference, Seattle, 2003

Driver, M. The Psychological Contract And The Psychoanalytical Approach. Presented at the Academy of Management Conference, 2002

Driver, M. Serial Number 9-11-01, September 11, 2001: Voices In The Workplace – A Performance In Three Acts. Presented at the Academy of Management Conference, 2002

Driver, M. Does Your Team Have a Learning Disorder? Presented at the DSI National Conference, 2000

Stead, J., Stead, E. and Driver, M. Life Cycle Learning. Presented at the Eighth International Conference of the Greening of Industry Network, Kenan-Flagler Business School, Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 1999

Driver, M. Innovation and Adaptation: Leading for Effective Learning in Organizations. Presented at the Southeastern DSI, 1999